Safe
by Katalius123
Summary: 3x07 imaginings. When Lexa's life is threatened, she and Clarke must confront the truth of their feelings for one another. Clexa One-shot.


Just some imaginings. Canon-based, 3x07 wishes. One-shot. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Lexa reclined along the sofa in her chambers, her eyes intent on the candles burning before her, deep in restless thought. She could not bring herself to sit upright, too strong was the pain in her abdomen where she had been wounded. She replayed the scene again in her mind's eye. The throne room, before an audience of her advisors and generals discussing and negotiating strategy, as she once again defended the path for peace with Wanheda at her side.

As the meeting was called to a close, a lone hooded guard moved forward to escort Lexa away, brandishing a blade beneath his cloak, unseen by those closest by. He plunged the crude dagger into Lexa's left side, yielding a shriek of pain. She recalled Clarke desperate to run to her side, held back by Titus, who had finally come to understand that Clarke was hers, as Costia had been, and that a threat to Lexa's life was a threat to hers as well. Lexa looked to him, pleading for him to take Clarke to safety. Her eyes fell closed at the sight of Titus disappearing as Clarke frantically tried to break from his hold.

She had not seen Clarke since that moment. The assassin was immediately captured, and where there would have once been no question over whether to murder him on the spot, he was instead placed in a holding cell for judgement per Heda's new doctrine of non-violence. Meantime, Lexa was rushed to her healers where the wound was discovered to be shallow enough that her life was not under serious threat. And now, back in her chambers, she touched gingerly at the wound only just beginning to heal beneath its bandage, lifting her shirt and inspecting the lightly blood-stained cloth.

She reflected on her pain, on the day's near-fatal events, and found herself at the precipice of a decision. She loved Clarke, and in her love had been clinging to the thought that perhaps, after all they had been through, Clarke felt something, anything in return for her other than hatred. But as she winced at her pain, and wondered with fear whether Clarke was safe, she knew that Titus had been right. Her love had placed them both in a path of inescapable danger.

At that moment, Lexa heard a knock at the door.

* * *

Clarke was frantic while Titus all but carried her to her chambers as she flailed and scratched to be free of him and return to Lexa's side. The guards in front of her door wordlessly stepped aside, letting them pass and shutting them inside.

"You must stay here, Wanheda. These are Heda's orders." Titus commanded.

"Like hell they are!" She moved to brush past him toward the doors. He grabbed her arm firmly to stop her.

"Let. Go." There was no mistaking the threat in her voice.

"I cannot. It is too dangerous."

"I don't care. I need to see her."

"Have you not done enough?" Titus barked. Clarke stopped, still, stunned. "Do you not see that you have done this? That you have brought this upon her?"

His voice broke, and Clarke remembered that she was not the only one in the room who wished they could be at Lexa's side, wherever she was right now. She thought to protest that this was not her fault, but how could she? "Blood must not have blood" was a policy enacted only because Clarke had convinced Lexa to listen to her. She found herself unable to fight back tears as a rush of guilt and fear overcame her. She collapsed into a chair, her head falling into her hands. Titus stood still, watching, almost glad for her pain.

"What have I done? She's dying, and it's my fault." Clarke sobbed.

"There is no use to dwell. We must fight for her life with the strength she does not have."

Titus did not move, but Clarke felt an absence of anger in his tone.

"You must stay here, Clarke. It is her command that you be kept safe. The guards will not let you leave. I must go to Lexa. I will come to you with news as needed."

He moved toward the door. Clarke looked up.

"Why are you doing this? Protecting me? You could kill me right now and this would be over."

Titus did not turn to face her for a long moment.

"Because…you are hers, Wanheda. And so help me, she is yours. It is my duty."

In the silence, the doors opened and Titus marched through them, disappearing to find Lexa.

The evening passed, Clarke was ragged with anxiety and exhaustion. She could not eat, drink, or do much else but pace throughout her room, ready to claw her way out if she did not see Titus soon.

At last, many hours later, he appeared. Clarke rushed to him.

"She lives. The wound was not so deep to threaten her life."

"Can I see her?"

"She is healing in her chambers. They brought her there to rest. She is weak. The healers will visit with her through the night but no one else."

"Titus…please."

"Polis is not safe for you tonight. You cannot walk the halls alone."

"Then give me an escort, a guard, someone you trust, or bring me to her yourself. But I am going to her no matter what you decide."

Titus did not answer. The two stared at each other, into each other, understanding despite their disagreements, their love for Lexa superseded all else.

"I am going to her now." Titus said with resolve.

Titus walked toward and through the doors. At first Clarke was unclear of what had happened, but understood as soon as the doors remained open even after Titus was clear of them. Carefully, she followed him.

They arrived at Lexa's chambers. Titus addressed the guards.

"I have brought Wanheda at the request of the commander. Let her pass."

The guard looked Titus in the eye.

"We are on strict orders to let none but healers inside these chambers."

"I am fulfilling a command. You will obey me as you would Heda herself."

Reluctantly, the guards stepped aside. Titus knocked loud and slow on the door. It was a moment before an answer came.

"Who's there?" came the stern but tired voice of Lexa from within. It gave Clarke relief to hear it. Titus looked to her, urging her to speak.

"…It's me." An even longer silence, so long that Clarke wondered if any answer would come.

"Enter."

Titus stepped aside, out of sight for fear of being punished for betraying Lexa's actual orders.

Clarke entered slowly. Lexa had not moved from the sofa. She drank what looked like an herbal remedy, grimacing slightly as it went down. Clarke stood, her mind suddenly blank with what to do. She wanted to run to her, embrace her, examine her wound, heal her herself.

Instead, she took a seat across from Lexa in the brown chair, remembering the last time she sat here, finding at last the desire to make art once again as she watched her commander quietly sleeping. How far they were from that moment.

"Titus has kept you safe?"

Clarke could have cried. Lexa, her life in the balance mere hours ago, was asking if _she_ was all right.

"He has. How are you feeling?"

"I will heal."

"I thought you were…I'm glad you're okay."

"Perhaps now you understand why I talk so much on my own death." She smiled. Clarke reciprocated, if only barely, her eyes brimming with tears at the sight of the woman so weak.

Another knock at the door. Lexa breathed a shallow, strained sigh. Clarke could see the effort it took for her to summon the air to call out.

"Here - rest. Let me."

Clarke walked to the door and opened it. Behind the guard stood an older woman with a basin of water, bandages, and some sort of earth-colored balm.

"She is here to tend Heda's wound."

Clarke looked back at Lexa, whose eyes were heavy. She nodded at the woman to enter.

Lexa hardly registered the woman's presence.

"You can leave the supplies. I will see to her wound myself. I was a healer among my people." Clarke said with conviction.  
Lexa looked at Clarke, curious of the purpose behind this half-truth. The woman looked between Clarke and Lexa, seeking a command. Lexa nodded. The woman disappeared.

Clarke began gathering bandage cloth.

"Please. Not now." Lexa said, her voice full of fatigue - and something else. Something troubling her.

Clarke heeded her wish and moved to the couch to sit beside her.

"Will you at least let me see?"

Lexa looked at her, her eyes telling her no.

"Please, Lexa."

Gingerly, Lexa lifted her loose shirt to reveal the bandage. Clarke took a sharp breath at the sight of the cloth, blackened with Lexa's blood.

"The blood is not fresh. The worst has stopped."

"You have to let me change that."

"I'm fine."

With great effort, Lexa motioned to stand.

"Lexa, you shouldn't…" she reached out a hand to help her, which Lexa swiftly batted away. The anger in her gesture disarmed Clarke.

"I'm sorry. But please, let me be."

Lexa stood and walked toward the balcony, looking out into the bright light of the moon as Polis slept below. All was silent for some time.

"You shouldn't be here, Clarke. It isn't safe." the sound of Lexa's voice was quiet, solemn. Clarke did not respond, still overwhelmed by the emotion of the day. Lexa turned to face her.

"I wonder if it may be time for you to return to Arkadia. Be with your people."

The words stunned Clarke.

"Is that what you want?" She asked, confident that the answer was surely no.

"I want my people to feel protected and for you to feel safe. I fear that if you stay here, that will not be possible." Lexa spoke with a resolve that Clarke had not seen since before Mount Weather, in the days when Lexa lived by her refusal to feel. It was almost frightening to see this side of her now.

"Where is this coming from?"

"Clarke, please. Trust that you and your people will remain unharmed. I will not betray any promise I have made to you. As I swore."

Clarke could not believe this was the truth. She knew that Lexa would be rattled from what had happened, but this was something else. Something darker and more fearful. She could only think that Titus's warnings about the influence of feelings had at last eaten away at her.

"Do you believe in what Titus has been saying to you?"

"We have both been threatened, Clarke. A man has tried to put a dagger through me in plain sight. What can I do?"

"So you would have me sent away?"

"To protect you."

Clarke was growing desperate to speak some sense into the commander.

"I am Wanheda. You are Heda. They are your subjects…"

"And I have lost their trust, Clarke! They have seen weakness in me and no longer respect me as their commander!"

Her anger was unbearable. Clarke could see the pain it was causing within Lexa, and thereby within herself.

"I don't understand. What's changed? You have said yourself that the path for peace is the way of the future, for a new world…"

"And I believe that. I do. You know this. But you cannot stay in Polis any longer." Lexa struggled to make Clarke see her reasoning without forcing herself to speak of her feelings. A silence fell between them. Clarke took steps toward her.

"There is no weakness in you, Lexa. I know…I know what you've said in the past but…feelings…love…I have only seen it give strength. To both of us."

They stood mere feet apart, now able to truly see the pain, fear, and utter exhaustion in each other's eyes. How long they both had fought to deny such a plain if unspoken truth.

"The love for one's people is not the love of which I speak, Clarke."

"...Neither do I."

Tears beckoned at both of them, but Lexa steeled herself, determined to maintain her resolve and do what she believed was best for this woman she cared so deeply for.

"Clarke…Ambassador. I feel it best you return to your chambers." Lexa broke their eye contact and stepped away from her. Clarke did not move, herself resolved to at last have a moment of honesty between them.

"Why do you want to send me away. Tell me the truth."

Lexa did not turn to face her as she spoke.

"At Mount Weather. I made a choice. One that I knew you would never forgive. I understand what I have done to you, Clarke. To your people. I do not presume to ask for your trust again."

"I know…" Clarke began, finally beginning to see. Lexa finally turned to look her in the eye.

"Since you have been here, living in Polis…it is not my love that gives me weakness, Clarke. It is my hope."

Clarke stood motionless as at last, understanding flooded through her. Lexa's fear, her pain, her determination to see Clarke gone was out of a belief that her love was unreturned and would be forever. That she could no longer justify the sacrifice of her people if underneath it all, she remained so firmly convinced of Clarke's lack of feeling for her.

"Please. Let us say goodnight. An entourage will escort you to Arkadia in the morning." Her voice begged, pleaded for Clarke to not make this any harder for her than it already was.

Clarke did not move, did not speak. They stood still a moment longer, Lexa in agony, Clarke in pure, certain clarity of what she must do.

Without words, she strode toward Lexa, stopping just before their bodies touched lest she cause her any pain. Clarke brought her hands to Lexa's face, holding their gaze, her tears now flowing freely and Lexa's breath shallow and quick. She looked deep into Lexa's eyes, confirming the answer to whatever question may have remained of her feelings, and finally, with relief and a dissolution of the months of pain, betrayal, and fear between them, Clarke kissed her.

They each of them poured themselves into the embrace, as if a planet of pain and nameless feeling had been taken from their backs. Lexa wanted to hold her tighter, as tight as she possibly could, but her wound prevented it. Clarke held Lexa's face in her hands, lightly pressing the back of Lexa's head toward her to guarantee there was no disconnect between their lips.

Without much thought, Lexa guided them toward her bed. Clarke gingerly sat Lexa down at the edge of the bed, leaning down to kiss her and placing her hands at the hem of Lexa's shirt. Lexa winced as she lifted her arms and Clarke drew the garment off her body, revealing again her patched up abdomen.

"Your bandage." she said, remembering the need to change it.

"Leave it." Lexa said as she pulled Clarke toward her by the hips, lifting her shirt and kissing her stomach. Clarke did not protest, and instead lifted her own shirt over her head. She stepped back from Lexa, whose breathing was still strained as fatigue cloyed at her eyes, but there was no slowing the momentum of this, the thing they had both so desperately and silently wanted for so long.

Clarke stood before Lexa and unclasped her pants, slowly removing them. In a moment, she stood naked. She stepped toward Lexa and kissed her, guiding her back onto the bed, her movements careful and ginger, mindful of Lexa's wound, until the commander was laid back against her pillows, covers drawn. Clarke moved carefully above her, kissing her face, neck, collar.

"Clarke…" Lexa whispered, a shyness in her voice. Clarke brought her hand to Lexa's cheek, asking her to continue. "I'm not…I don't have the strength to…" she struggled to articulate, but Clarke knew well what she meant.

"Shh," Clarke answered, silencing her with a kiss.

"Rest. I'll be gentle." She spoke the words in Lexa's native tongue.

Lexa leaned up and kissed her, grateful and overwhelmed by love, closing her eyes as Clarke moved tenderly down Lexa's body. Tracing soft kisses over any inch of her that would not cause pain, only pleasure, Clarke reassured her with every gesture that however Lexa loved her, she felt every possible incarnation of that love in return, and that for this night, alone in each other's arms, no danger or threat could touch them.

* * *

Thanks for reading! My first Clexa fic, but probably not my last, who knows.


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